Assisting Nukes/Anti.....calmly

How is it stupid to be able to counter one of the most deadly weapons in the game? If nukes were meant to be game enders, then there wouldn't be anti-nukes and once anyone breaks out a nuke, the credits might as well start rolling. Nukes aren't game ending weapons, but they might as well be if you can't defend against them.

Tell me, if you have scouted the enemy's base, and they have no nuke or anti-nuke.

What would you build?

Countering isn't the problem, its just a fundamental flaw in logic. Why go for the shield when you can get the sword and win, straight up?

Why get the shield when you can knock the sword out of your opponents hand long enough to use your own?

In a 1v1 nukes are pretty bad but the real show is in bigger FFA games. The only hope you have against nukes is that someone sits in his corner and masses Hornets, killing much faster than the nukespammers do.
Ive had multiple bigger FFAs(6-8) where I wiped all others with T2 bombers. Even the nuckturtles where too slow. Which, disturbingly, were about 75% of the players in those games.

Regarding any ground based attack that doesnt include a decent ammount of AA, realistically - just forget about it without air supremacy.

Nukes are a boring mechanic, nothing more.
In a 1v1 the one building the launcher decides when and where his opponent has to attack. Antinukes cover a small area and can be sniped just like the nuke launcher. So either the bomb drops somewhere else or its just sitting around, waiting for your deathball to leave the AN area.
Of course no one goes 100% nuke, theres ground units, T2 bombers,... all the stuff that makes it a bit harder to drive over there and blow that thing up.
And what to do against someone who just slowly saves up the metal, stores it and then bursts out the launcher/missile with a giant bunch of fabbers in 30 secs or so. Thats faster than a group of levelers will get to his base. So at least a ground attack is no option anymore.
Since you most likely cant get anti up that fast you have to build that in advance and waste the metal for it.

With a well spread out base, nukes arent game enders but still can deal a lot of damage and certainly can heavily impair the movement of larger tank groups.

Pretty much sums up the current game state.

Nuke defense is stupid.
The defense against an Ant is another Ant. Or Dox, Leveler,... Which can move around and is flexible. It can also go on offense.
An antinuke just costs a load of metal doing NOTHING. It cant be used for anything else but protection of a very limited area. And you pretty much have to produce it in advance and protect it from beeing sniped too.
Its better to rush a nuke yourself.

Then it sounds like Anti-nukes need to be cheaper, less easy to destroy and longer range. I can agree to adjusting the properties of the anti-nuke, but to say nuke-defense is stupid and that being able to defend your base against a nuke is dumb is just silly.

No. Nukes vs. anti nukes are a mechanic that needs to DIE.

When tank battles stop because no one can beat the game using tanks, something is seriously wrong with the game. Nukes merely mask that problem by creating a new and completely different game about who has nukes and who can/can't defend them.

Why would you ever use an anti-nuke when you can use T2 bombers?

That's the problem, a defensive stance is the wrong way of tackling nukes when a mobile pre-emptive attack is far, FAR superior

The fundamental problem is NOT the balance of Anti-Nucks, but the underlying mechanics of how they work.

Mike

Ever since TA, I've found the nuke/anti-nuke game play to be silly. But at least in TA you couldn't power build nukes, you had to wait for the missile to build on it's own. I think that it would create more dynamic play to have a cheaper defensive option than just the anti-nuke launcher. Something like a T2 AA cannon or something. Or something like what we are trying to build today: an anti-nuclear missile laser that should either blow them up mid flight or just neutralize them.

Something like this in PA could take 1s per missile to detonate it, have a few second cool down, or something, so that it doesn't instantly snipe 15 nukes from the sky or something silly like that. But this would be a cheaper, ammo-less option that would make players want to do bomber runs or specific tactical unit strikes to disable them and then drop their nukes.

I think that would make it more fun to play with nukes. I don't really mind them being in the game, but I think that have only one defensive option against them isn't fun at all.

this is exactly the issue. If anti were slightly cheaper or no assists were allowed I believe it would alleviate the pain. Ppl talking about directing your economy, then you direct it into multiple launchers.

So what you're saying is that one player can not single handedly defeat 4 others?

It sounds like everything is working fine, at least in that regard.

no he's saying if you play the way even you like to play yourself, with tanks. Plays a larger match beyond 1v1 your death will be by spammed nukes

And what I forgot in my initial post:
No matter what is done with nukes/anti, there MUST be a mobile solution to protect armies.

Then why have nukes at all? Because then it just becomes a matter of who gets the nuke first. And if whoever gets the nuke first will most likely win because the other guy has practically zero chance of defense if and when it has been launched. Using T2 bombers can also be used against nukes, so should we not build nukes because T2 bombers can take out the launchers?

The game can be beaten by using ground units. It just gets harder to do as the game progresses. I'm not denying the game is in an imperfect state, and I agree that at the climax of the battle nukes become a significant part of the game, but to me it just seems like since people would rather do this than do that that then we should eliminate the option to use anti-nukes altogether. I suggested different ways we could possibly make it more challenging to acquire nukes to make the game a little more interesting, but then all anyone ever wanted to do was to limit fab ability to assist in building it. I think no matter what this game will ultimately end up being, not everyone is going to be happy about it.

I agree that if being given a choice, you would take the chance to build a nuke over an anti-nuke any day, unless you are behind your opponent in constructing one. But the option is still available to be able have some sort of ability to defend your base against getting nuked in that case. Like I said, nukes are not game-enders, but if you take the ability of someone to be able to knock a missile out of the sky, it might as well be.

I agree with this, but I do not agree we should take the ability to do so away.

Why? It is pointless and is just making you play worse. Why would you want that?

Because I have the option to build an anti-nuke or not does not determine my ability to play better or worse.

Yeah, unfortunately, it does.

And even if that didn't matter to you or me.

You won't win with that argument when it matters against the ultra competitive people.

So by having an anti-nuke (or some sort of ability to counter nukes in general) as an option for my T2 fab to build, that makes my ability to play worse? Seriously? It's my ability to determine the appropriate time and place to use it that determines how I play, not the option in and of itself. I dunno about you, but I'd rather have the last ditch option to protect myself from getting rained on by nuclear weapons, even if I choose not to use them.

Its not having the option, its that if you consider that using them would actually be worth while mean you arnt doing that it takes to actually remove the problem.

Why build a anti-nuke when you should remove the nukes factory?

I'm not saying you shouldn't try and remove the problem, but I should at least be able to keep a nuke from falling on my head if my plan to stop his construction fails.